


my skin feels so paper-thin

by kimirce



Series: crystals of the sea and stars [3]
Category: Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001), Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alchemy, Altean Lance (Voltron), Atlantean Lance, BAMF Lance (Voltron), Gen, Reveal, Team as Family, What-if Scenario, balmera crystals, there's some description of injury and bleeding but it's not super graphic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:15:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24448693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kimirce/pseuds/kimirce
Summary: One way the team could find out. Pidge takes a hit, and Lance makes a choice.
Relationships: Allura & Coran & Hunk & Keith & Lance & Pidge | Katie Holt & Shiro
Series: crystals of the sea and stars [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1722238
Comments: 16
Kudos: 117





	my skin feels so paper-thin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This won't have a ton of context if you haven't read any of the other works in this series, but the basic premise is that Atlantis was founded by Altean refugees several thousand years ago, and Lance's grandmother is Atlantean. This is a what-if scenario in which the team finds out about Lance's heritage.
> 
> This exists at some nebulous point in time when Shiro is still the Black Paladin and Keith has not joined the Blade and the team has become family to each other.

The glowing blade caught Pidge in the back, bit into her neck and cut deep into her right shoulder. The soldier wielding it went down from a headshot fired from Lance’s bayard a second later. “Pidge!” Lance heard himself scream, and Hunk screaming with him. Keith shouted wordlessly and threw himself into decimating their attackers. Lance guarded his back while Hunk knelt over Pidge, blasting away anyone who got too close.

It was over in a minute, with the three paladins out of their minds with fear for their friend and attacking like it. Shiro and Allura were shouting over the comms, trying to get someone to tell them what was happening.

“It - it’s bad, guys,” Hunk stuttered out. “Pidge needs a healing pod, like, now, oh god, there’s so much blood - ” And there was, a stain of it spreading on the floor underneath her, and Pidge was way too pale, losing too much blood.

Lance stood there frozen, and Keith dropped to his knees next to Hunk and Pidge.

“The Castle is under heavy fire,” Allura was saying, voice strained. “We can’t get to you. Someone needs to get Pidge out.”

“I’ll head to my lion,” Shiro said grimly. “But I - ” he grunted. “I’m a bit held up. Can one of you get Pidge out?”

“We’re stuck in here,” Keith told him. “Pidge was gonna override the lock. Hunk, can you - ”

“On it,” Hunk said, scrambling to his feet and towards the door.

Lance’s heart thumped in his ears. He stared at Pidge’s too pale face. She’s so small, he thought distantly. Too much blood for someone so small. And that bright red shade – she was bleeding from an artery. They’re not going to make it in time, he realized. Not going to make it, not going to make it, not going to make –

“Lance, snap out of it!” Keith ordered. “Help me with her, we need to staunch the bleeding - ”

_Screw it._

Lance tore off his helmet and threw it on the ground. “We won’t make it in time, and you know it,” he said, barely recognizing his own voice. He knelt on Pidge’s other side. “She’s dying.”

“We will, Lance, we will,” Shiro said in his ear, and Allura joined in.

“We will, Lance, don’t give up, Coran’s got a healing pod ready - ”

“I’m not giving up,” Lance said grimly, pulling his crystal out of his armor and body suit.

Keith stared at him. “Lance, what the hell - ”

“I’ve never done this for something this bad before, so let’s hope it works,” Lance interrupted him.

He clutched the crystal in one hand and closed his eyes. He breathed out. Focus, he reminded himself. _Part of you, part of us,_ his amat’s voice echoed in his mind. _You’ll have what you need when you need it._

His crystal hummed in his hand, and he felt the energy lighting his veins. This was much higher stakes than every single time he’d done this before, him and Thira fixing up each other’s scratches and bruises after falls and reckless flights.

Pidge was dying.

 _I need to heal her,_ he thought. _I need it. Kagisik so._

He opened his eyes. The crystal’s glow lit between the fingers of his right hand, and he pressed the same light into Pidge’s wound with his left.

Lance didn’t notice Allura and Shiro shouting through the comms for updates, worried because Keith had frozen and was staring at him in shock, and Hunk had stopped what he was doing and stood there gaping.

“Someone explain what is happening right now!” Shiro ordered, furious in his worry.

Keith found his voice. “Lance is…doing something. I think - I think he’s trying to heal her.”

“He’s what?” Allura said. “Keith, what are you talking about?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “There’s…glowing. He has a necklace?”

There was a flurry of confused questions over the comms, but Keith couldn’t focus on what they were saying anymore because the color was returning to Pidge’s face.

“Pidge,” he breathed.

Lance removed his glowing blue hand and the gash in Pidge’s shoulder that had been pouring blood was…gone. There was an imprint of Lance’s hand left on Pidge’s skin, marked in bright blue light, but it faded as Keith watched. Pidge’s eyes fluttered open.

“What…what happened?”

“Pidge!” Came the shout into their earpieces, frenzied questions asking if she was alright.

Lance exhaled as Pidge stared up at him. “Good to have you back, chiquita,” he managed. Then the world spun, and Lance slumped onto the floor.

Pidge sat up fast, and shook off her dizziness. “Lance!” she said.

“Someone tell me what is happening, now!” Shiro shouted.

“Lance was glowing, and then Pidge woke up, and now Lance is passed out, what the quiznak, Shiro what do we do?” Hunk fretted.

Keith was still staring at the unbroken skin of Pidge’s shoulder, clean and unscarred between the gaps in her armor. “Shiro, Pidge is healed. She was bleeding out, and now she’s fine.”

“What?” Several people started talking at once.

Shiro silenced them. “You know what, we’ll figure it out later,” he said. “Get out of there, now. Get back to the Castle and then we’ll figure things out.”

“Roger that,” Keith answered. He stared at Pidge’s shoulder a moment longer, then grabbed Lance’s helmet and jammed it onto his head, then slung Lance himself over his shoulders.

“Come on,” he growled to Pidge and Hunk. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

*

They laid Lance on the table that Coran used to prep injured people for the healing pods. He was still unconscious, his skin a shade paler than normal. His necklace hung outside his armor.

Shiro was examining Pidge, horrified by the size of the break in her armor, even though it was already starting to repair itself. She waved him off. “Shiro, I’m fine,” she insisted. “Really, I feel normal.”

She looked at Coran as he completed the scan of Lance’s unconscious body. “What’s wrong with him?”

Coran hummed, stroking his moustache. He slid the holographic scan results over so Pidge could look for herself. “He seems fine, just exhausted. I don’t think he even needs a healing pod, he just needs to sleep.”

Pidge breathed a sigh of relief, and heard it echoed around her.

“Guys,” Shiro started, then stopped. “What happened? What did Lance do?”

Pidge shrugged. “I was unconscious.”

Keith and Hunk exchanged glances.

“He… well, he pulled this thing out,” Keith said, walking over to Lance and indicating the crystal strung around his neck.

Coran peered at it, joined by Allura. “It looks like – it looks like a balmera crystal,” Allura said, surprised.

“But why would Lance have a balmera crystal?” Shiro asked.

“Yeah, and since when can balmera crystals heal?” Hunk added. “I thought they, like, powered technology, not…”

Keith shook his head. “I don’t know. He said…he said that he had never done this for something this bad before.”

Allura furrowed her brow. “But that implies that he had done this before,” she pointed out.

“But when?” Shiro asked. “And how?”

They all looked at the young man on the table in silence for a moment.

“I think only Lance can tell us that,” Coran said soberly. “I’ll get him comfortable. We can figure out what happened after he wakes up.”

The team nodded in acquiescence. They trailed out of the medbay one by one to go clean themselves up and get some food. It hadn’t been an easy mission.

Keith was the last out. He watched Lance’s face, remembering the look in his eyes right before he’d healed Pidge. Fear, and then pure determination.

_What was he not telling them?_

*

Lance blinked awake to the stark white ceiling of the medbay. There were pillows under his head, and he was covered in a soft blanket and wearing his pajamas. He felt pleasantly tired, satisfied – like waking up the day after a day of strenuous exercise.

 _How did I get here?_ He wondered.

The last thing he remembered was – he sat bolt upright. _Pidge!_

His crystal swung against his chest, and he looked down, and it was _outside his clothes._

Lance froze. Oh, Dios, no. He closed his eyes in consternation. He had a feeling the team would have a lot of questions, the first being: _why didn’t you tell us?_

Coran bustled in. “Welcome back, number three! How did you sleep?”

“I, uh,” Lance fumbled. “Alright, I guess?”

Coran smiled at him. “Good. We should probably get some food into you now.” He reached over to help Lance up.

Lance grasped his arm. “Wait, is Pidge okay? And how long has it been?”

Coran patted his hand soothingly. “Pidge is fine,” he reassured Lance, “She’s quite healthy, actually. And you’ve been asleep for about…nineteen vargas.”

Nineteen vargas? That was almost a full quintant that he'd been out. But at least Pidge was okay. He met Coran’s eyes.

“Come on, my boy,” Coran said kindly. “We can sort out the rest after we get you something to eat.”

They went to the kitchen, and once Coran settled Lance down with a bowl of food goo, he commed the rest of the team to tell them that Lance was awake.

Hunk ran into the kitchen first, with Pidge chasing after him. “Lance!” Hunk exclaimed, leaning over the table awkwardly to give him a tight hug.

Allura walked in just as Hunk released him, and Pidge stepped in to punch him lightly in the arm. “Ow,” Lance complained.

“Don’t scare us like that,” Pidge ordered. “And eat your food.”

Lance laughed. “I’m eating, alright?” He took an appallingly big bite of the food goo, causing both Allura and Pidge to wrinkle their noses.

Allura placed a hand on his shoulder, and leaned down to press her cheek into his hair for a moment. “I’m very happy to see you better, Lance,” she said warmly.

Keith and Shiro were the last to arrive, walking in as Lance was finishing his bowl of goo. They had clearly been on the training deck, both of them in workout clothes and Keith with his hair tied back.

“Good to see you up, Lance,” Shiro said, ruffling his hair.

Keith smiled awkwardly. “What he said.”

Lance smiled back, feeling a little subdued. “Thanks, guys.” He looked down at his plate and pushed the last of his food goo around, wanting to delay the tension he could feel hanging in the air. The others clearly had questions, but he really appreciated that they’d worried about taking care of him first.

When he was done, they all stood around in awkward silence. It seemed no one could figure out quite what to say, and Lance refused to meet their gazes.

Hunk rescued them. “Why don’t we go to the lounge, everybody? And then maybe Lance can, um, fill us in on what happened the other day?” He turned a hopeful gaze on Lance.

Lance sighed. “Yeah, buddy, we can do that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> amat - grandmother  
> kagisik so - be with me.  
> If you're curious, please see my [Atlantean Language Masterpost](https://kimirce.tumblr.com/post/620023133342154752/atlantean-language-masterpost) for explanations of the words I'm using - although I don't think I've updated it with _kagisik so_ yet.
> 
> Also, nineteen vargas is about twenty-six and a half hours, or just over a day - see my other post about [Voltron Time Slices](https://kimirce.tumblr.com/post/616687342809448448/voltron-time-slices) for more on this!
> 
> Next chapter is explanations! I actually already wrote a version of it, but then I decided I didn't like it so I'm rewriting the whole scene. But, you know, I wanted to get this part out there anyway.
> 
> This reveal scene was one of the first things I wrote for [crystals of the sea and stars](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1722238). I don't actually know yet how the reveal will go in [Stars Above Atlantis](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23894878/chapters/57446278), but I have six more of these what-if reveal scenarios planned. I'd really like to hear what you guys think of this piece and the idea of different reveal scenarios as a whole, so please feel free to share your thoughts down in the comments or come talk to me about it on my [tumblr](https://kimirce.tumblr.com/)!


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